


When Harry Met Gabi - Chapter One

by freixe



Series: When Harry Met Gabi [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, The Affair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 06:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11754213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freixe/pseuds/freixe
Summary: Inspired by 'The Affair'. Now in his forties, with three teenage children and a successful if stressful career, Harry Potter's life has settled into something resembling normality. Two events are about to change this: the rise of a pureblood wizard terrorist group, and the reappearance in his life of Gabrielle Delacour.





	When Harry Met Gabi - Chapter One

**Harry**

You know my story. So it won’t surprise you to hear that there are parts of it I wish I could change. I know better than to try to rearrange history with time-turners by now, of course, but if I could, if I knew it wouldn’t ruin my life as it is… there are things I would undo, mistakes I would take back if I could.

The day of Teddy Lupin’s wedding is one of them.

It was a Saturday in July, the middle of the school holidays. James had come back from his final year at Hogwarts and was employing his right to use magic at home rather too liberally. Albus had barely left his room all summer, sulking over Scorpius being in Italy with his parents, and Lily was… Lily was loud. That morning she was screaming at James for tranfiguring her collection of eyeliners into a variety of worms, and Albus had ignored so many calls to get up that Ginny had been forced to leave a knocking spell on his door.

I’ll admit, there had been a few split seconds where having three children had made it onto my list of things I would change. Oh, not really. But sometimes… it was a close call.

As rushed and stressed as we were, I remember thinking about Teddy as I fumbled with my tie.

‘Twenty-four. Bit young to be getting married, isn’t it?’

Ginny glanced at me in her dressing table mirror. ‘You were twenty-three when we got married.’

‘Yes, but… well, it didn’t seem so young back then.’ I readjusted my glasses and smoothed my hair over my scar. ‘And to be honest, I just don’t know what I think about him marrying a muggle.’

I looked down and realised I’d done up my tie wrong. Before I could fix it, Ginny pointed her wand at my neck. The tie loosened and readjusted itself, forming a neat knot just above my collarbones.  

‘Bit prejudiced of you, Harry,’ she said drily, going back to her makeup. ‘What’s next? Joining the Mather League?’

This was before the Cardiff attacks, back when the Mather League was still just a joke. They were a group dedicated to stamping out wizard-muggle marriages, name after a once-great family of wizards that had become extinct after too much “cross-breeding” with non-magical people. (Of course, the Mathers weren’t extinct at all – according to Ministry records, most of them were living perfectly normal lives in or around Tunbridge Wells. There just hadn’t been a wizard or witch born in the family since the 1960s.)

Still, I scowled at Ginny. They could try and distance themselves from Death Eaters all they wanted, say it was about magical survival and not about racial purity until they were blue in the face, but the Mather League were spouting out the same pure-blood nonsense that Voldemort and his cronies had for years. Of course I didn't agree with them.

‘That’s not what I – I only meant that Teddy’s such a talented wizard. I just can’t picture him staying in on Saturday nights, eating chicken kiev and watching _The Vicar of Dibley_.’

Ginny pulled a face. I wasn’t sure if she disagreed or if she was just confused by my rather outdated muggle cultural references.

‘Magic stole Teddy’s parents from him,’ she said, flicking her wand at the pair of earrings I’d bought for her fortieth birthday. They flew off the bedside table and attached themselves to her ears with a click. ‘I don’t blame the boy for wanting a bit of ordinary.’

There was a cold tone to her voice that took me by surprise. Magic had stolen my family, too – but it also gave me a new one. I didn’t agree with the Mather League; of course I didn’t. But I couldn’t imagine spending my life with someone who couldn’t even understand it, let alone do it.

Ginny had a point, though. Ordinary was underrated. I’d spent a long time longing for ordinary. With the exception of work, which threw up the odd bit of drama here and there, I now had it. I’d had enough excitement for one lifetime.

That’s what I thought, at least.

‘Mum!’ Lily stormed into our bedroom. ‘James just turned my lip gloss into an iguana!’

‘For goodness’ sake, James, leave your sister alone.’ Ginny threw up her hands. ‘Honestly, you’d think he was eight, not eighteen.’

Eventually, we managed to bundle the kids into the garden by portkey to a village outside Edinburgh. We ended up in a field in the middle of nowhere, which meant enduring a twenty-minute walk of bickering and whining before we reached the venue, a renovated barn on the grounds of a farm.

With half of the guests being muggles, the rest of us were under strict instructions to keep the magic to a minimum. Some made more of an effort that others: the Scamanders turned up in a bewitched yellow Mini Cooper, streaming bubbles instead of smoke from the exhaust, but I think Teddy was too nervous to notice. Adam seemed to take it all in his stride. That said, I did notice a few perplexed looks from his relatives when Luna walked in wearing a wolf headdress.

To be honest, I don’t remember much about the ceremony itself. There were so many that year – Parvati Patil had remarried in the spring, and Victoire married a nice young wizard from Serbia that January. The party afterwards is a bit of a butterblur, too. I remember having a conversation with Adam about his job: social media manager for a dating app, a combination of words that made as much sense to me as Ancient Runes. I remember Hermione getting into a heated debate about the Mather League with one of Tonks’ uncles. I remember Teddy sitting down beside Ron, Ginny and myself, happy but quite obviously a little tipsy, and looking across the marquee, where Adam was showing Rose how to ceilidh dance.

‘Do you think they would have liked him?’ he asked. His eyes, that day a lilac blue, were shining.

‘Of course they would, darling,’ Ginny said. ‘They would have loved him.’

‘They wouldn’t have minded that he was, y’know… a muggle?’

‘Nah, mate, of course not.’ Ron swirled his whisky, making the ice clubs clink around the edge of the glass. ‘Remus was a half-blood himself, remember? And your mum hated all that pure-blood nonsense.’

Relief washed over Teddy’s face. It wasn’t the first time we’d told him all this, but the kid was like an engine who ran on reassurance: he needed topped up every now and again.

‘Good. I didn’t think so. Just with all this Mather League stuff going on…’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I told him. ‘It’s just a few nutters with too much time on their hands. It’ll blow over soon enough.’

I wished I had something more to give him. I lived for things like that when I was younger – snippets of my parents as people, not just James and Lily Potter, Aurors Extraordinaires. But most of my conversations with Remus and Tonks had focused on battles and strategies and… Voldemort. There was no time for small talk.

‘Anyone can see how happy he makes you, Ted,’ I told him. ‘That would have been more than enough for them.’

Ginny patted his hand, and the conversation moved on. Teddy was dragged off for photos with his new in-laws soon after, Ginny went to check on the kids, and Ron had to extract a too-drunk Hugo from the toilets.

I sat by myself for a while, watching Neville and Luna struggle through a ceilidh dance and Bill and Fleur try to follow a conversation about a TV series they’d clearly never heard of. It always fascinated me, seeing muggles and wizards collide. Looking around, I saw Fred Jr. trip over his laces and Angelina flick her wrist at him, freezing him in mid-air before he could fall face first into the wedding cake. Someone had put a refilling charm on the champagne, and Louis let a chocolate frog hop around the dance floor for a good minute before he snatched it up and ate it. Amazing what muggles could miss.

‘Harry?’

I spun around in my seat, blinking. There was a woman standing above me, a nervous smile on bright red lips. There was something familiar about her: the platinum blonde hair, or something in the –

‘ _Gabrielle_?’

‘Indeed. I’m afraid I’m, uh, crashing the wedding. My sister insisted I come along for the reception.’ She bent down to give me a kiss on each cheek. ‘It’s been so long.’

Gabrielle Delacour. I hadn’t seen her since Bill and Fleur’s wedding, more than twenty years ago now. Back then she had been a carbon copy of her sister, but their similarities had faded over the years: Gabrielle was slightly taller and thinner than Fleur, with narrower eyes and a tighter mouth, less ready to smile. Her once-long hair had been cut to her shoulders, and the dresses I had always seen her in as a child had been replaced by a loose-fitted white blouse, tight floral-patterned trouser and heels.

She looked different. She looked… good.

‘So,’ she said, placing her handbag on the table. ‘Now I can finally buy you that drink.’

I blinked. ‘What drink?’

‘The one I owe you for saving my life.’

My cheeks flushed. The second Triwizard Tournament challenge was one of those embarrassing moments that would flit into my head just as I was falling asleep: my 14-year-old self heroically dragging unconscious Gabrielle from the lake at Hogwarts, only to be told I was the only one who hadn’t figured out she and the other hostages had never actually been in any danger.

‘Oh, god, no. No drink necessary.’

My glasses had steamed up. I took them off and wiped them on the sleeve of my shirt. Gabrielle smiled. She smiled like it was a secret; it made you feel lucky to see it.

‘How about one for old times’ sake, then?’ she asked, nodding towards the bar. The heat rose to my cheeks again. Too many people in there. Too much… dancing.

‘Um. Sure. Yes. Why not.’

Getting up to go to the bar, I glanced across the barn. James and Lily had both joined the ceilidh dance, and Ginny was now sitting with Albus. I mimed a drinking motion, eyebrows raised to ask if she wanted anything. She shook her head, blinking in surprise when she noticed the blonde woman waiting for me at the bar. Gabrielle waved, no doubt recognising Ginny from her flaming Weasley hair.

‘So, uh, what have you been doing all these years?’ I asked her. I’d heard snippets of news about Gabrielle from Bill and Fleur – a long stint in Canada, a job at the French ministry – but they’d become tangled with parts of other people’s lives.

‘Oh, you know. Work, travel. Life. What would you like to drink?’

‘Gin and tonic would be great.’

She leaned across the bar to catch the barman’s attention. Her blouse was low cut at the back, revealing faint bumps of her spine beneath pale skin. There was a tattoo just below her hairline: a single feather, inked in greeny-blue. The barman slid two glasses across the bar. She passed one to me and raised the other.

‘Santé. At last, my debt is paid.’ Her voice was serious, but a smile twitched at her lips. I grinned.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t drag you out of here in an act of misguided heroism. My adventure days are over.’

‘You’re a family man now.’

‘I am.’

My eyes glided across the barn again, this time landing on Albus, slumped on a chair by the edge of the dancefloor. He looked much like he had all summer: alone, lonely and glum. I felt a stab of sympathy for the kid, followed by a flash of irritation. There were dozens of kids from Hogwarts here. Surely there was someone he could get along with other than Scorpius Malfoy.

‘It suits you.’ Gabrielle took a long sip of her drink. ‘Harry Potter, the boy who… changed nappies. Got a mortgage. Took out life insurance.’

I had to laugh at that. ‘What about you? I don’t think I saw you at Victoire’s wedding,’ I said, remembering suddenly an empty chair at one of the tables. A shadow crossed her face.

‘No, I was… I planned to come, but I wasn’t very well. I’m only now beginning to feel better, really.’

Another memory came back to me then. Ginny, teary-eyed for a woman she didn’t even know, telling me what her brother had just told her: that Gabrielle’s baby had died. It was over two years ago, maybe even three… but how could I have forgotten that? Gabrielle must have seen it in my face, because her own turned ashen.

‘It’s alright, you don’t –’

Behind us, a door slammed.

‘This marriage is an abomination!’

With a crack of light from their warns, two wizards stormed into the barn. They were dressed in traditional clothes (even the hats; in my thirty-odd years in the wizarding world, I had barely seen _anyone_ wear a pointed hat) and had scarves pulled around their faces, but I knew who they were instantly: Reuben Selwyn and Matthias Carrow, leaders of the so-called Mather League.

‘Muggle-wizard marriages are diluting our bloodlines!’ Carrow shouted. ‘You bring shame upon our community, the entire wizarding world!’

Under other circumstances, it would have been laughable. For people who claimed to be acting on behalf of the wizarding world, they were exposing it to one of its biggest threats: the general muggle population. But right now, there was nothing comical about the scene. Not when Adam’s guests were beginning to back away, looking around nervously for an explanation; not when poor Teddy looked as if the entire world were falling apart.

‘Oh, piss off, Carrow,’ Ron spat, half a mouthful of whisky following the words. ‘Go back to the dark ages, will you?’

‘This is trespass and a breach of the peace,’ Hermione added. ‘You’re violating muggle laws, if not our own.’

I had no idea if that were true or if she were improvising. Either way, it didn’t have any effect. Carrow blundered around spouting off about purity and honour, then pointed his wand at the ceiling: a thin rope of fire spilled from the tip and wrapped itself around the rafters. Instantly, the muggle guests exploded into screams. People sprinted from the barn, pushing over chairs and scrambling under tables as the roof above them crackled and splintered, chips of wood and ash already floating to the ground.

But for us, there was no real need to panic. It was forty or fifty witches and wizards again those two morons. Plus, there was nothing to suggest that Carrow and Selwyn were really going to hurt anyone; the Mather League hadn’t resorted to actual violence yet. But then I looked at Gabrielle, her mouth a perfect red ‘o’ of shock. Like a flashback, I saw her at her sister’s wedding all those years before. Skipping around in her bridesmaid’s dress. Screaming when the Death Eaters attacked.

I didn’t think. I grabbed my wand, and charged across the room.

‘Expelliarmus!’

The spell hit Carrow in the chest: his wand flew out of his hand and he staggered backwards, bumping into a table of profiteroles. Selwyn thrust his wand at me, his face turning pink, and screamed something. I ducked – but just as a bolt of blueish light slipped from his wand, stunning spell hit him between the eyes. He fell backwards and the bolt spun off-course, shattering on a stag’s head mounted above the door. Before I could stand up, someone shouted ‘levicorpus’ and lifted Carrow into the air, but by now he had retrieved his own wand and undid both spells. He and Selwyn fell to the floor with a thud, scrambled to their feet and fled through the open door. Above them, the roof was still burning.

I spun around to see who had cast the spells. Hermione and Ron were standing behind me, wands drawn, hair ruly, eyes wide.

We looked at each other.

We grinned.

A slow-clap began on the other side of the barn.

Every head in the room turned: Albus was still sitting at the edge of the dancefloor, something between a sneer and scowl on his face. Beside him, Ginny’s face was pale, her lips tight. That brief feeling I’d had when I’d looked at Ron and Hermione – of being a trio; of having a purpose; of being young again – was snuffed out. I’d embarrassed them. I’d made a fool of myself. Harry Potter, charging into battle. Harry Potter, trying to be a hero.

But then Gabrielle joined in. And so did Fleur, and Bill, and Teddy and Adam and George and Angelina and everyone left in the barn. Lily gave me a hug, and James made some joke about being the one to get them next time. As the fire was put out, the profiteroles unsquashed and the muggles had their memories wiped, I kept catching Gabrielle’s eye. Every so often, she smiled.

It felt like our secret.


End file.
